Dufflepods
by lurkisblurkis
Summary: A collection of stories too short to stand on their own and too long to really technically count as drabbles. New 12-12-08: "On the Other Side," in which the Pevensie family moves.
1. The Right Books

The Right Books

by lurkisblurkis

* * *

_At the bottom of the cliff a little on his left hand was a low, dark hole - the entrance to a cave perhaps. And out of this two thin wisps of smoke were coming...Something was crawling. Worse still, something was coming out. Edmund or Lucy or you would have recognized it at once, but Eustace had read none of the right books._

—The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Chapter Six: The Adventures of Eustace

* * *

"What's this?"

The headmaster—a droopy sort of man, who looked as though he had not had a proper hols in years—halted in his tracks in the middle of the hallway. "I beg your pardon?"

"Those big double-doors. What's in there?"

The headmaster gave him a long, unwavering, droopy stare. "The library."

Edmund looked at the two massive, polished bronze handles with a growing feeling of curiosity—the first real interest he'd felt in his surroundings since the old man had grudgingly agreed to show him around the school. Any unknown which lay behind closed wooden doors was something of a fascination for the twelve-year-old boy, due to recent events in the past several years. And an unknown full of books...

Dimly, he recalled all of the libraries he had ever looked upon. There was…hmm, there was the dusty school library from his younger years in Finchley, with nothing but extra copies of textbooks and the occasional novel by old men whose names he couldn't pronounce. That had been no good, except for that it had contained several large picture books with information about trains and railways (he had liked those sorts of books as a smaller child).

He could also remember the town library where he and his classmates had used to go to study and catch up on schoolwork. The librarian had been nice, and the books had been helpful, but it had been such a large, silent place, with looming shelves and squatty chairs, and Edmund had felt almost, well, afraid every moment he spent there, that he would knock something over or accidentally say something too loudly, and then who knew what manner of calamity would fall upon him? He couldn't be sure—but he could almost swear that even at ten years old he had been imagining medieval torture devices, even before he'd known what medieval meant.

And then—and not dimly at all, but very colorfully and clearly—the library at Cair Paravel flashed into his mind. That had been an entirely different place! There had been stone walls and stained glass windows, glass-and-iron shelves, cushioned benches, darkwood tables...It had been larger than even the town library in Finchley, but it had not been quiet. Instead it was filled with the sound of many merry animal voices talking and laughing, and of pages being turned. There had been a whole second level with a stone staircase leading up to it (a more quiet place, for those who did not want their reading interrupted), and Edmund's mouth turned up into a smile as he pictured literary fauns, solemn satyrs, and silent dwarfs, sitting there on padded couches with their respective noses buried in thick books.

There was a muffled sigh from somewhere to his upper left, and he became swiftly aware that the headmaster was turning away and saying rather mournfully, "I don't suppose libraries are of much interest to boys your age today."

"No—wait—" began Edmund before he could stop himself.

The headmaster turned around. There was a strange look on his face—if it hadn't looked so out of place on his weary features, Edmund might have said it was hope.

The old man reached, very slowly, into his coat pocket, and removed what looked like a handful of twigs. Edmund realized that it was a very ancient, battered set of spectacles.

"Would you—like to see the library?" asked the headmaster in a very quiet voice.

Edmund looked up at him. For the briefest of moments, he fancied that the old man's face didn't look droopy at all.

"Please, sir."


	2. Not a Man's Country

Not A Man's Country

by lurkisblurkis

-

_"It's not a Man's country (who should know that better than me?)  
but it's a country for a man to be king of."  
Trufflehunter, "Prince Caspian"_

_-  
_

"Hadn't we better all quiet down and get right down to things?"

It was the fourth or fifth time Lucy had tried to make herself heard, and by now her voice was strained and anxious and obviously wasn't doing anything to help. The mermaids continued laughing and splashing. Lucy's dress was soaked through and the rock on which she was sitting—specially sanded and positioned for her comfort though it had been—was beginning to give her a cramp in the legs.

"How are we supposed to discuss anything if you all keep at it?" She threw out the question into the middle of the activity and got no response.

Lucy groaned. If these were the political representatives of the mer-population, she couldn't begin to imagine what the rest of the less "dignified" folk would be like. Mermaids, she'd always thought, were solemn, beautiful, noble, certainly very merry and gay, but not insubordinate.

"All right, I'll just throw out ideas to you lot, then, and you can flap your tails or something if you disagree," Lucy said in exasperation. "Otherwise I'll take it as a yes, and it'll be your fault if you don't like it. Right! What do you think about irrigation—do we take water directly from the great river or not?"

One of the mermaids dove in an arc over another and down into the waves again, and all of her companions laughed loud and long, but they seemed oblivious to the presence of their queen.

"You just have to learn to live with them," said Tumnus to her afterward. "They might not really be paying attention at all, but you never can tell with mer-people."


	3. On the Other Side

Author's Note: This was its own one-shot on my old account, but it felt too short to stand on its own this time, so here it is as a Dufflepod.

**_On the Other Side  
by lurkisblurkis_**

_-_

"If we really think that home is elsewhere and that this life is a 'wandering to find home,'  
why should we not look forward to the arrival?"

— C. S. Lewis

* * *

English roads are not like Narnian roads. Not in the city. They weren't meant for leisurely rides or scenic journeys—they were made for getting places.

We used to live in the country. For that matter, we used to live in Narnia. But things are changing very quickly, and, although we knew we could never stop them, we'd all somehow thought that we could slow them down.

"Here, let me help you with that, Lucy," says my sister, and she takes Lucy's heavy bag into her arms. Lucy stretches her arms for a moment in relief, but then her face turns back into anxiety and distress.

Moving the burdens around doesn't make them go away.

We stand together and look at what we're about to leave. This house had a quiet street and a well-worn back yard, fit with little room to spare into the middle of London's hubbub and buildings. It wasn't a magnificent house. We lived there, though. The floor creaks because of us. The bedrooms and the little room under the stairs have had words about Narnia spoken in them. The walls in the upstairs hallway have dents knocked in them from my fights with Ed. I remember a certain window that let in the night air when I was young, and I couldn't sleep some nights because it scared me so.

Bad memories. But they're part of us.

I won't miss the house. I don't think any of us will. But we will miss the part of our lives in which we know what happened.

"Aslan's on the other side of London, too," murmurs Lucy beside me, as if to reassure herself. I glance down at her. She's fourteen, with a slight figure and hair that curls at her shoulders. She doesn't look reassured.

"Our house isn't," Susan says quietly. Next to me, Edmund is biting his tongue and not saying, "Our new house is." But I'm only a little surprised at how Susan feels. She grows easily attached to places and things, and she has every right to miss her home…

I look down. "It doesn't feel like home to me," I mumble, and the others all know what I am thinking.

"Me neither," whispers Edmund. And Lucy repeats his words in a low voice.

We're all carrying the burden now. I look at Edmund, at Lucy, at Susan, and suddenly and silently I thank Aslan for bringing us to each other, for my heart is overwhelmed with pain and love. There is the English road, straight and dim. There is the world ahead of us that we have to go into, and the world will not allow justice to us, stubborn followers of Aslan.

"It's going to be hard," I say barely above a whisper as tears prick my eyes.

Only Ed hears me. He nudges my shoulder and nods toward the road. "Hard," he repeats. Then he smiles. "But good."

The words tug at my heart as we pile slowly into the car, everybody but me giving last glances at the house, at the lawn, at the sign that says "FOR SALE". I am looking at the road. Narnia never promised an easy way. England declares a hard way straight out. And I am wondering what kind of courage I will need to be able to press on toward a goal in this bright, alien world of England. For the answer, I do not need to look around me at my siblings. I stare at the end of the road, at what lies beyond after the road itself has stopped and people will tell you that you can't go any further.

It is hard…but good.

_fin_


End file.
